Power Rank 07/02/2010 - Page 11

On July 02 2010 03:33 flamewheel wrote:
After reading all the comments, it's time to give my completely scattered thoughts!


First off, this. I came back from work and read the 88 comments posted; after I had finished (and I read pretty quickly) there are about ten more? Ridiculous. And most of the comments aren't even talking about the rest of the PR, just, predictably, about Flash and Jaedong.

To put my bias on the line before everything else: Jaedong is my favourite player (reason I started watching progaming) and Flash is #2 or #3.


Firstly, this. It's already been said and said again that "the Power Ranking isn't simply a show of statistics"--it's about more. Mortality, in his well-constructed post, brings up precedence with Etter for the first Power Rank, so everybody simply arguing based off the fact that Jaedong had a better record than Flash should just stop there. Statistics, however, do have significant relevance in looking at the big picture--they help put things in context. In short, Holgerius is correct here. You look at the ELO and KeSPA rankings for the past month and a bit beyond, Flash and Jaedong are both dominating above others. However, Flash dominates Jaedong. 4000 KeSPA? Ridiculously over Jaedong. His ELO, until recently, was consistently in the 2400s. Even this month's KeSPA rankings show that Flash is still 1100 points over Jaedong, who is 700 over Kal (#3). Flash's ELO is still one point above that of Jaedong's, despite their recent respective records. Undeniably, the gap between the two is largely attributed to obviously more than the most recent month, but that "momentum" that one can derive from said rankings and ratings riding into the month has to be considered as well, and for pre-June times Flash had way more momentum than Jaedong. During that period, the "who's the scariest" award belonged to Flash, so should one month change that?

I still believe that Jaedong deserves the top spot this month, but of course it's controversial, and Plexa did call it a judgment pick, so lay off of him people. This thread has been littered with OZ and KT insignias, and Jaedong and Flash fanboys, and of the two camps the Jaedong fanboys are more prone to attacking Plexa. Perhaps it's the fact that I partake in too many Mafia games, but reading comments that simply disparage Plexa because their favourite player is not on top sickens me. Plus, really, what's #1 and #2? Flash fanboys, for the most part, were willing to concede that Jaedong could have deserved and taken the top seat, though Jaedong fans are much more adamant that the Tyrant, not the Ultimate Weapon, should be sitting on the throne. Both sides can bring relevant statistics, observations, and their own personal opinions to the side, and even through everything, I can only side with wanting Jaedong at the top by a tiny bit.

Let's consider this:


This is an interesting suggestion. Despite the fact that 12yearsofsc has been posting pretty much useless one-liners in this thread otherwise, this brings an interesting question to my mind: if Power Rank comes out every month, and we had to assign some arbitrary value to how much what had transpired in the month mattered over the momentum of a player at the beginning of the month, where would everyone stand? Flash rode into June with so much more over Jaedong, so how much does that factor into the PR? Obviously, this is up to Plexa, not us to decide. We each have our differing opinions, though I for one want to bring up something nobody has mentioned yet.

It is true that Flash has been absolutely sucking in his Ace matches. However, it's not like KT Rolster has been negatively impacted because of this. They still retain their number one spot, and they captured the regular season title with a ticket to the Proleague Grand Finals. In short, Flash's Ace losses, while detrimental to his own record and the overall record of the team, do not actually affect KT in context, since they were already pretty safe. On the other hand, Jaedong winning his matches has helped OZ as he normally has, and they still will be very hard-pressed (read: impossible) to make playoffs. So really, it can be said that it's not that "only finals and stuff akin to them" matters, since in this case it can be seen that Flash's losses really did not affect his team adversely.


I'll use this excellent post by Musoeun to bring up a question I like asking myself. Who is scarier (as in, who would you be more afraid of facing in a random match)? Between Flash and Jaedong, in my progaming-watching lifespan it has mostly been Flash. When I started watching PL, Flash was just starting his absolute stretch of dominance (around October?) and Jaedong was somewhat in his shadow. This stretch ran all through the EVER OSL, Nate MSL (controversial, so whatever), and through Winner's League, when Jaedong started hitting his mini-slump. However, recently (Hana Daetoo-ish) Jaedong has grown far more scarier in my eyes than Flash, and a lot of comments in LR threads and otherwise share my view when Jaedong steps in the booth to play. Whether this is attributed to the fact that Jaedong seems to play a more raw and adaptive style than Flash, or the fact that Flash is more heavily prepared against (teams know they can beat OZ if they can just take out the three non-Jaedong players) doesn't really matter to me. The point is, with the start of R4 and the no shown lineup policy, Jaedong's power in my eyes has increased. He's much more likely to randomly rape some poor person than Flash does, since everybody has been preparing for Flash. Interestingly enough, in R5 Jaedong OZ hasn't even gone to Ace, but I'm sure that all teams had somebody prepared to try to take him down. Still, Jaedong having not lost an Ace match this Proleague season weighs into my mind as well, so all in all Jaedong is much more intimidating than Flash to watch. Is this power as defined by the power ranking? I think it should at least factor into it, but it's not something defining. Merely another piece of a large puzzle, though in this case I believe Jaedong eclipses Flash, at least for the recent times. Flash is still #1, but his more mechanical playstyle impresses me less than does Jaedong's seemingly thoughtful/less play--adaptation has always been big in my books.

The relevant statistics have been discussed to death, in my opinion, so I'm not going to touch upon them other than simply saying that I think Jaedong should have more momentum riding his wins (and even that epic loss to YellOw) since half the time I see Flash play now, a little voice in the back of my mind whispers "well, he could lose, you know... he's been doing so." Seems like my personal Sorting Hat, but whatever. With Jaedong, it's like "ooh, Jaedong. His opponent better have brought the lube, and lots of it" no matter who it is.

Is there anything else I've left out? I've kind of petered out by this point and my attention span is short.

This can sum up my thoughts:

Flash had a lot of built up momentum and power, important to Plexa as we can see. Jaedong has been doing better lately. The "cushion" has to stop somewhere though.

Let's go Jaedong, take #1 next month. I believe.

And in the time it took to write this post, 14 more comments were posted. Ridiculous.

Good job on the PR, Plexa, especially for the lower ranks. I agree loosely with most of it, and I hope to spam you with more PMs about putting Jaedong at #1 in the coming month!